I watched as he clenched his fists tightly, the muscles in his arms becoming defined. I could understand judgment and ridicule. Being the son of an MC President didn’t exactly make me the most popular kid on the block. Parents wouldn’t ever let their kids hang out with me. I was sneered at every day at school. But I had other kids like me at the clubhouse. I couldn’t give a flying fuck what anyone else thought.
What I also had was two loving parents who gave a shit.
Connor didn’t.
It took a moment for him to relax, but eventually he calmed down and lifted his head instead of letting it hang in defeat. He held his shoulders back and he was a different man. Not that scared, hurt teenager, I’d just seen come out of him.
“I want justice for Hayley. I might not have had people at my back when I needed it, but I’ll be fucking damned if I let any of those girls, including Jayla, go without having someone who’s there for them.”
“Hayley will get her justice, and somehow we’ll find a way so that Jayla has everything she ever needed and more. The club won’t let her down,” I promised him.
I was true to my word.
I’d find a way so that that little girl had all the love and support she ever needs.
I wasn’t sure quite how yet, but I’d find a way.
Just as I opened the door, home from my morning class, my phone began to ring. I tossed my bag on the floor and crouched down next to it, digging past my school books, attempting to follow the sound. My hand grasped it and I mentally high-fived myself as I pulled it out, briefly recognizing Deacon’s name as I hit answer.
“Hey!” I said cheerfully.
“So I know you aren’t rostered to work today, but Annabelle just rang and she’s having car issues and can’t get here and I’m desperate and I know you’ve got study to do but—”
I laughed. “When do you need me?”
“Oh thank goodness,” he said sounding thoroughly exasperated. “The sooner, the better!”
I smiled. “I’ll see what I can do. See you soon.”
“Thanks, Chelsea.”
I threw my phone on the sofa and headed for my room to find my gym gear. Rose’s door was open and she was propped up on her bed flipping through one of our assigned textbooks.
I must have caught her eye and she looked up and smiled. “Hey, you wanna study with me. I could really do with some help.”
“I wish I could. Deacon just called and he’s desperate for someone to come in, like now.”
Her face dropped immediately. “Are you sure he can’t find someone else? I mean, we have so many assignments due and they’re so big. You should really be working on them.”
I stepped inside her room, her panicked tone concerning me. “I know. I’ll get some done tonight.” I raised my eyebrow. “Are you okay?”
She swallowed harshly. “Yeah, sorry. Just stressed.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Rose…talk to me. Your dad isn’t planning another visit is he?” I thought maybe she was scared he’d come around again if she were left alone.
She laughed nervously. “I don’t think so. I think he’s done enough damage that he’ll stay away for a little while.”
“Then what’s up?” I pushed, sitting at the edge of her bed.
She seemed to think for a while, shaking her head. When she finally spoke, all she said was, “Blizzard.”
I frowned, not understanding.
“He…um…said something about coming and checking on me today. I just … I just don’t want to see him. Not by myself.” She looked down at the book in her lap, flipping the pages in her fingers. I reached out and touched her leg, it was shaking slightly.
“Blizzard just wants to watch out for you, just like I do,” I tried to reassure her. “I’m not sure what the deal is with you guys, but he cares. I can tell.”
She shuddered. “He shouldn’t,” she muttered.
“Why?” I asked.
Her head jerked up like she hadn’t expected me to hear her last comment.
“He’s trying to get involved. I just want him to stay out of it, but he keeps pushing.” Her brow creased like it made her angry.
“Because of your dad?” I enquired.
“He will just get hurt.” The comment made me curious. Blizzard could be pretty damn scary at times and with the club at his back I doubted that anyone would dare mess with him.
I tapped her leg. “Blizzard’s a big boy. Trust me when I say he can take care of himself.”
She thought about that for a moment before her head bobbed. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess he can.”
“If it makes you feel better I’ll give him a call, tell him if he wants to come round to wait until I get home.”
Her faced brightened a little. “That would make me feel better.”
I gave her a soft smile. “Okay, I need to get going. Deacon sounded like he was about to blow a valve.”
I relished in her smile, even though I knew it was forced. I dressed quickly and slipped my feet into my running shoes. Running to work felt awesome. By the time I got there, my body was stretched and limber and my head was clear. I strapped my phone to my arm and plugged in my headphones, starting an up-tempo song to get myself pumped.
“Bye,” I called as I pulled the front door open and jogged down the stairs.
I looked around outside, expecting to see one of the boys in the area. Some of them were better at being stealthy than others. When I didn’t see anyone this morning on the way to class, and now with the streets still empty, I wondered if Optimus had called off his protection detail.
Did that mean the threat was gone? Or was he just sick of wasting his men’s time on watching over me.
I tried to shrug it off, even though I knew it would sit in the back of my brain, burning a hole until I got answers. My feet pumped against the pavement in time to the beat of the music. That was how I liked to run. I had a playlist specifically for this, songs that pushed me and made my body keep up. Just as I came to about the half way mark, I spotted some of the girls from X-Rated exiting a convenience store on the corner. I checked the time on my watch and decided I had a few minutes to run over and catch up with them. I didn’t have many girlfriends at the club. Apart from Harmony, the other club girls were nice, but we just never gelled well. I did, however, get on well with a handful of the strippers from X-Rated. They were different, more approachable and friendly. For most of them stripping was a way to support family or like me, put themselves through college. They weren’t just there to pick up men.
Lucy looked up when she heard my steps approaching and her face instantly lit up, “Chelsea!” She took a couple of steps forward and met me with a tight hug.
“Hey! How are you?” I asked, stepping back and returning the broad smile.
“Hey, Chel.” Kat stepped around the car and I noticed the small girl clutching her hand and hiding just behind her leg. I was confused for a second. Kat had a little boy at home, not a little girl.
“Am I missing something?” I joked, smiling down at the girl with dark hair. I felt the change in the air and Kat and Lucy both looked at each other with sad eyes. “What’s going on?”
“Let’s get you in the car, Jay.” She gave me a soft smile before leading the girl back around the car.
I looked to Lucy and she sighed. “We lost one of the girls.”
I inhaled sharply. “Who?”
“Hayley. She was pretty new, I’m not sure if you’d met her.”
I racked my brain, trying to put a face to the name. “She was young, sweet. I think I met her when she first started.” I vaguely remembered meeting the young girl in the bathrooms one night at the club a couple of months ago. She was nervous about going on stage, not as confident as the other girls. I started to connect the dots.
“The girl was hers?” I pointed to the car.
Lucy’s head bobbed. “That’s Jayla. She’s staying with me until Op can sort some shit out.”
“Why is Op involved?” I asked, confused.
I watched as Lucy’s eyes filled with tears and I pulled her in, wrapping my arms around her and holding her tightly. All the girls at X-Rated were close, a lot like sisters. Losing someone you consider family is hard, even if they were reasonably new.
I leaned back but held my hands on her shoulders, her eyes met mine. “Someone killed her, right outside the back door at X-Rated.” She sniffed. “I found her, just lying there next to the dumpster.”
My heart raced and in the moment I knew the threat hadn’t been eliminated. It was exactly the opposite. The threat of violence was gone. Someone had been killed and there was no doubt in my mind that it was related, and that was why Op was taking control of Jayla’s future. I felt sick and suddenly a little paranoid.
“Jayla doesn’t have family?”
Lucy wiped at her tears as she shook her head from side to side. “No one that wants her anyway. Hayley was thrown out of home when her parents found out she was pregnant. And as far as I know she never told anyone who the father was.”
My heart sunk. “They’ll put her into foster care.”
Lucy reached out and squeezed my arm. “Op and Connor said they won’t let that happen.”
Just hearing that made me feel a little better. I believed in Optimus and the amount of caring and love that’s inside of him. People looked at him and saw a scary biker, but this was because he wore a hard shell. He didn’t feel the need to impress people, he was who he was and fuck it if you didn’t like it.
I felt my phone vibrating against my arm and pulled it around to see that Deacon was trying to call me. I gave Lucy another quick hug and ducked my head through the window to say goodbye to Kat who was entertaining a giggling Jayla. Jayla would be okay. She had so many people that cared about her, and the club at her back. She would make it. I knew it.
My phone began to ring again as I took off down the road. I didn’t bother answering. I would be at the gym in less than five minutes if I picked up my pace and kept it there. I could do it. I was born for this.
I flew through the doors of the gym, breathing heavily. I bent over, gripping my knees and trying to slow my breathing. My lungs burned in protest.
“Oh, you’re here. I’ll just ring and cancel that search party.”
I didn’t look up, raising my hand and flipping Deacon off with my middle finger. I heard him chuckle and he grabbed a hold of my arm and began to pull me to the back of the gym where there were ten or so women sitting on spin bikes. I was still attempting to catch my breath as I realized what was happening. There was a spin bike class here waiting for an instructor. Deacon grinned and I groaned, folding my body over again.
“Ladies, Chelsea here will be taking your class today. Enjoy.” He patted me on the back but before he could walk off, I grabbed his elbow.
“I’m going to kill you for this,” I whispered out the side of my mouth before shoving him away. All I heard was his laughter echoing in the wide open space of the gym, even above the grunting and groaning of people as they worked out.
I glared at the spin bike.
Maybe running to work wasn’t such a good idea.
“I...quit...” I spat in between gasps of air. “You’re...a...bastard.”
Deacon just smirked at me from behind the front desk as I gripped onto it for dear life. My legs felt like Jell-O. Spin classes were hard enough as it was, but being thrown in straight after running to work was like hell. My body was drenched in sweat, and stumbling over to where he was sitting had made me feel like Bambi trying to walk for the first time.
“Thought you were a runner?” he shot back sarcastically. “Where’s your endurance?”
“Screw you.” I poked my tongue out in an entirely childish way but I didn’t care.
He pushed back from the computer and walked around the desk, his smart-ass smirk turning to into a genuine smile. “You did great. I’m impressed.” The praise was warming. It felt good.
“Can I sit down now?” I asked with a laugh.
“Sure! We have another class starting in twenty minutes. How do you feel about aerobics?” He wiggled his eyebrows and I groaned.
“Great. I feel just great about it,” I mumbled as I walked off, legs still shaking under me.
Luckily for me, one of the college papers I took was in instructing. It ranged from one-on-one work to group led fitness. Some people in my class hadn’t liked the attention, but I didn’t really mind. I kind of loved the feeling of unity as you all moved together to the music. I grabbed a bottle of water from the large fridge that was next to the front desk as I passed and skulled back half of it. I loved the feeling the cold liquid as it went down my throat and settled in my stomach.
There was a small lounging area near the front door with a couple of sofas, a coffee table, and some magazines, so I dropped myself into the soft, billowy soft cushions with a satisfied sigh. The muscles in my legs screamed out ‘thank fuck for that.’ I flipped through a magazine for a while carelessly, not actually reading anything but just scanning the pages. When I saw Deacon heading for me, I groaned.
“Not yet. You said twenty minutes,” I called, holding the magazine up in front of my face. I heard him laugh and I peeked over the top. He was still coming toward me, but that’s when the world started to slow down. I swear it was like watching an action movie in slow motion.
The cocky grin melted from Deacon’s face and his hands reached out for me. He suddenly looked petrified and even as he called my name my mind still couldn’t compute what was happening and why he’d become so frantic.
That was until there was an explosion behind me and glass started to fall around me like a stunning sparkling rain. It glittered in the afternoon sunlight and scattered all over the floor. The magazine fell from my hands. I was pulled into Deacon’s arms and he dropped us both to the floor. I couldn’t breathe. I wasn’t sure if it was because Deacon’s body was plastered on top of mine, covering me almost entirely, or if it was because I was in shock. I could hear screaming and yelling, and with my body pressed against the floor I could feel the pounding of footsteps running. They were running away.
It was gunfire.
My brain finally figured it out.
There was a torrential pour of gunfire shattering the large glass windows that lined the front of the gym and pinging off the equipment. Someone was fucking shooting at us. The rain of bullets stopped momentarily and Deacon wasted no time in climbing off me and pushing me across the floor. I tried to scramble to my knees, but I was panicking and my body wouldn’t do what I was trying to tell it to.
“The locker rooms! We need to get to the locker rooms,” Deacon roared in my ear as he gave me another push, sliding me across the wooden floor. I scrambled on my hands and knees with him directly behind me. Another hail of bullets began and I screamed, curling myself into a ball and covering my head. I felt an arm hook around my waist and I was being pulled across the floor, glass and pieces of wood grating against my skin.
“Take her,” I heard Deacon yell, and I was lifted from the ground.
I jostled and jumped around as someone ran with me down the hall. The door to the locker room slammed open and I was placed gently on one of the wooden benches. I didn’t get a good look at the guy who’d thrown me there because as soon as I was dumped he shot back out the way we’d come. My body shook. It was all too real, but at the same time all I could think was that this must be a nightmare.
Living with the Brothers I’d seen my fair share of bar fights, stabbings and the occasional gun going off. But I always knew I was safe, I knew they weren’t meant for me.
This…this was meant for me.
I could feel it in my gut, and as soon as the realization hit me I ran into the toilet stall and emptied the contents of my stomach into the shiny white bowl.
They were going to get to me.
There was no one here to protect me.
I wasn’t sure how long I sat there, curled in a ball on the cold floor, but it felt like an eternity. W
aiting for someone to walk in and end my life. The locker door slammed again and I wiggled my body closer to the toilet, thinking for some fucking stupid reason I might be hidden.
“Chelsea,” I heard Deacon’s voice call out to me and jumped to my feet. I leaped on him as soon and he stepped into view. “Oh, thank God.” He wrapped his arms around me and held me tightly, it was what I needed right now.
“Oh my God, Deacon. We need to get out of here!” My fingers dug into his arm, but he didn’t even flinch. “Are they gone? Someone would’ve called the police by now.”
His arms slowly released me and I stepped back. His face was stone, almost cold.
“Deacon—”
“They’re here.”
My eyes widened. “Who’s here?”
“The police.”
I felt the tension in my body slowly start to dissipate and the air whooshed out of me in relief. While I wasn’t a huge fan of the police, living with the Brothers by Blood we were always looked at with a negative eye. They often pulled us over for no reason or just made lewd comments. I knew they had their reasons to be suspicious, but some took it to another level.
“Okay,” I said, my head bobbing. “Are they outside?”
He shook his head, his eyes bearing into me. I was scared by the sudden intensity from him.
“They’re right here,” his voice croaked. “I am one.”
“You’re a what?” I choked.
“A police officer.”
I backed away from him. “No…you’re not.”
He reached out and I flinched. “Chelsea, come on. It’s just me.”
“No! It’s not just you,” I snapped, pointing my finger accusingly. “I don’t even know who you are.”
Another man who I’d seen a few times around the gym and during mine and Rose’s second failed night out, burst into the locker room and looked around frantically. “We gotta get going. They’re still sitting outside, but we can head out the back.”
Chelsea (The Club Girl Diaries Book 2) Page 19